Death Message

THIRTY-ONE

It might well have been a good film; Thorne had no idea. After nearly two hours he couldn’t even have told anyone what it was about. George Clooney, some stolen money, a decent sex scene halfway through with that fit woman who used to be in CSI.

He guessed that Louise wouldn’t have been able to do much better. The pair of them sitting and thinking about other things; getting on with it, like everything was going to be fine. Trying to put the previous twenty-four hours behind them, when time together felt like something they were wading through.

‘I thought it was pretty good,’ Louise said, as they pushed through the doors on to Camden Parkway. They’d chosen an early showing. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock.

Thorne shrugged. ‘I couldn’t really follow it.’

They decided to walk back to Thorne’s place in Kentish Town. It was a cold, clear evening, and they were both bundled up in scarves and heavy coats.

As the High Street turned into Chalk Farm Road, they just avoided colliding with a group of women coming out of a restaurant. Thorne moved to step around, but one of the women reached for his arm.

‘Tom…’

Thorne stared at his ex-wife.

Jan had called when his father had died, but they hadn’t seen each other in eight or nine years. It wasn’t that she’d changed that much – less than he had, almost certainly – but that he simply hadn’t expected to see her here. It didn’t make sense.

He said her name as he reached for Louise’s hand.

‘I was just having a meal with a couple of mates,’ Jan said. She looked around to the two other women, who were walking slowly away towards Camden Tube station. She turned back, reddened as she saw Thorne staring at her belly; the bump clearly visible, even through an overcoat. ‘I was going to call you, matter of fact…’

She’d changed rather more than Thorne had first thought.

Thorne was aware that he was nodding like an idiot, so stopped and tried to smile. ‘Right. Bloody hell.’

‘Don’t know what the hell I’m doing, to be honest. My time of life.’

It took Thorne a second or two to work out how old she was. Forty. No, forty-one. He was nodding again. ‘Is it…?’

She tucked a pale pashmina into the collar of her coat. ‘Patrick’s.’ She faked a laugh, as though Thorne had been joking. ‘Of course it is.’

‘Great.’ The teacher she’d buggered off with.

‘He’s at home, getting stuck into essays.’

Thorne wondered why she’d felt the need to explain where her boyfriend was. If he was still her boyfriend; maybe she’d married him. He pictured a scrawny, ginger-ish article; pigeon-chested with curly hair and bum-fluff. Remembered him flying out of bed like a scalded cat when Thorne had caught the pair of them at it one afternoon.

For the third or fourth time, Jan’s eyes flicked across to Louise; the glance as fleeting as the smile that went with it.

‘Sorry, this is Louise,’ Thorne said. ‘Jan…’

Louise leaned in to shake hands. ‘So, when’s it due?’

‘Six weeks.’ She took a step forward. ‘Can’t bloody wait. Look at the size of me already. I’ll be waddling around right through Christmas.’

‘Better then than summer though, I suppose.’

‘That’s true.’

‘Be a nice way to start the new year,’ Louise said.

The three of them took a few steps towards the kerb as another group came out of the restaurant.

Jan turned back to Thorne. ‘So, you well?’

‘Yeah, I’m good.’

‘Still in the same place?’

‘We were just… heading back.’ Thorne looked at Louise, who nodded to confirm the simple fact.

Jan looked past them to her friends, who had now stopped a hundred yards away and were looking at something in a shop window.

‘You said you were going to call,’ Thorne said. He nodded towards Jan’s stomach. ‘Was that to tell me, you know…?’

‘Well… just to catch up, really. So, this has been good, actually.’

‘OK.’

Just as the pause was becoming horribly awkward, Louise leaned against Thorne and said, ‘I’m cold.’ She smiled at Jan. ‘I’m sure you don’t want to be standing around.’

Then it was just a few noises of goodbye, and Jan saying once again how good it had been that they’d run into each other. How weird, and what a small world it was. She kissed Thorne on the cheek, did the same to Louise and walked away to join her friends.

Thorne and Louise carried on up Chalk Farm Road and cut beneath the railway line towards Kentish Town. They walked quickly, not saying a great deal, with such conversation as there was initiated by Louise. She told Thorne that his ex-wife hadn’t looked the way she’d imagined. That Jan looked well and had seemed friendly enough. Thorne did little but grunt his agreement; tried to think of something to say about the movie.

Having switched her phone to silent in the cinema, Louise checked it for messages. She listened, then called Hendricks. As she and Thorne walked, a few feet apart, she told Hendricks that the movie had been decent enough, asked him what he’d been doing. She laughed at something and said she’d call him again in the morning.

‘He’s doing OK,’ was all she said as she put the phone away.

When they reached Thorne’s street, Louise a

‘That makes two of us,’ Thorne said.

‘OK, then.’

‘No, I meant so you might as well stay.’

She hoisted her bag a little higher on her shoulder, looked at Thorne as though she wanted to say something. She stepped up to kiss him, in much the same way as Jan had done.

Said: ‘Let’s talk tomorrow.’

For the third or fourth time, a car slowed, then blared its horn when the driver saw that the man waiting at the side of the road had no intention of using the zebra crossing.

Brooks didn’t even look up.

He’d thought about bringing some flowers, but knew they wouldn’t have lasted long. That was something else that had changed since he’d been inside: bouquets and teddies tied to lamp posts and benches, right, left and centre. He’d seen several of them walking about the last few weeks. He wondered if anyone had left tributes to Tucker or Hodson. A nice wreath in the shape of a motorbike by the side of the canal for Martin Cowans.

It occurred to him that he didn’t know what time it had happened. As Angie and Robbie were together, they were probably walking back from school. Heading to the sweet-shop on the way home, maybe. It would still have been light then. Nice and easy for the driver to see them both; and for them to see that the car wasn’t going to stop.

He wondered if there’d been any skid marks on the road. Bloodstains to scrub off the crossing. ‘Joy-riders’, that copper had said, when they’d come to give him the news. He remembered the male one with the dirty collar breathing heavily, saying, ‘We were able to get a paint sample.’

He hadn’t seen their bodies.

At the time he’d felt relieved; uncertain he’d have been able to cope with seeing them like that. Now, standing in the cold, a few feet from where it had happened, he wished he’d had the chance. He would have closed his eyes and kissed them. Said something.

A woman arrived next to him and stood waiting. Told him they reckoned there might be snow on the way. When a car stopped she ambled across, turning to look back at him when she reached the other side of the road.

The funeral hadn’t given him the chance to say goodbye, not really. He’d stood sweating in a borrowed suit, avoiding people’s eyes and moving away whenever the whispering had started. Sitting in one of the cars with cousins and uncles; relatives Angie had had no time for. The priest had said, ‘May you have an abundant life’ when he’d stepped dutifully up to kiss the icon in front of their coffins. Placed a manicured hand on each ornate casket and said, ‘May their memory be eternal.’